LOWER PROVIDENCE — Members of both the Lower Providence and Upper Providence boards of supervisors honored 13 police officers and volunteer firefighters Wednesday night for saving the lives of seven residents while fighting a fire Feb. 27 at the Audubon Court Apartments.

Commendations for heroism were presented to Black Rock Fire Co. members including Fire Chief William Kasper and Capt. Daniel Miller.

Police Sgt. James Crawford, Cpl. Thomas Momme, Officer Robert Cable and Officer Cherelle Cutting, all of the Lower Providence Police Department, also received Distinguished Unit Citations.

Aston arrived one minute after the fire call was received at 7:43 p.m. and attempted to enter Building C, where a first-floor fire was burning in an apartment. He was driven back by heavy fire and smoke, said Lower Providence police Chief Francis Carroll. Additional Lower Providence police officers evacuated the residents of Buildings B and C.

The tower ladder truck of the Black Rock Fire Company arrived, and Kasper and Miller used a ground ladder to rescue four adults and three children from a third-floor balcony. Miller climbed to the balcony and allowed the residents to breath from his air pack in the middle of heavy smoke from the fire, according to the commendation. Kasper climbed the ladder and rescued one child.

Murray climbed the ladder and carried an infant to the ground. Aston climbed the ladder and assisted two adults to the ground. Turtle rescued a small child and assisted two adults to the ground.

Crawford, Cable and Cutting stabilized the ladder on the ground and removed the rescued persons from the area of the fire.

At the same time, Daywalt, Mosteller, Williams and LoCasale worked on putting the fire out in the apartment building.

Gurpreet Singh and Shahid Moghal were both trapped with two other adults and two children during the fire.

“A neighbor came banging on the door and shouting, ‘There’s a fire,’” Singh said. “We rushed out to the balcony because the smoke was too thick to walk through.”

Moghal said that on the night of the fire several other families with children could be seen on their balconies as they were grabbed by firefighters on ladders.

In other business Wednesday, the Lower Providence board authorized Township Manager Richard Gestrich to apply for a federal Department of Justice bulletproof vest partnership program to pay for 50 percent of the cost for 14 new police vests. The grant would pay for bulletproof vests purchased between April 1 and Aug. 31, 2016.

The application will cover 50 percent of the $12,019 cost for 14 vests at $858 each, Gestrich said. The township has a $4,515 balance of unspent funds from a 2013 program grant.

“A significant number of current vests in service will require replacement over the next two years,” said Carroll in an April 8 memo to Gestrich.

“It helps subsidize the costs of the police vests. It is a 50-50 grant,” Gestrich said. “We only have to replace the vests at a certain rate. We have about 30 police officers.”